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Boy George and the War On Pop

Ian Penman,
New Musical Express,
December 1984

2003 note: I dont know about this: "this" being the original 2,000 words I handed in at the very last minute to a poor, frazzled Mat Snow, who was expecting a 300-word LIVE review. Whats more, he was expecting an Andy Gill LIVE review. AG & I had gone up on a press coach to Birmingham to see CC LIVE; Andy in a professional capacity, me to bedevil Andy with foul suggestions and vile habits and to snuffle up most of his sulphate. (Thus, the 300 onto 2,000 wordage.) But for something that was written without prior expectation, in one night (one long nights journey into day), on someone elses typewriter, I think it kinda stands up; and Ive always kinda wanted it archived in its full inedite form (as opposed to the odd, cut-up version Mat had to run, bless him). People who were on the press bus that night, still talk, I believe, and in awed tones, of some of the sights they saw that night on the journey back home from Birmingham to London, which soon became known as Apocalypse Now 2, not least due to the river of projectile vomit Andy left down the centre of the bus. An impressionable young female journalist from the Daily Mail who got in my and Andys sights sadly gave up pop journalism the very next day, if I remember correctly. And went off to cover a war zone somewhere...

Total word count of piece: 2253

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